...
Over the course of their enlargement, the images become increasingly
abstracted until the final pair of eight-by-twelve foot banners effectively
blurs two cropped portraits into something akin to old master paintings.
The three quarter portrait of a seated woman, in fact a male user's
wife, Thelma is burnt out into a range of ochres and blue-greys reminiscent
of a Vermeer. Meanwhile, Tristan features a headless body in a bra
and panties, arms akimbo at the hips – a pose straight out of Cezanne's Bather–
revealing that, oh yes, this is a man. While these images may expose
the secret lives of strangers in the new media du jour, their compositions
and form reveal the consistency of image making– persistence of history
despite itself.

Spring
2007
A World of webAffairs

...
There is a whole different 'e-world' out there, which stands correct
to Marshall McLuhan's "The medium is the message". Virtual
representation of one's self over the wires of the Internet seems
to have profound effect on people, regardless of what role the
participants play in the "real world". They transcend
the ties and schemas of society to become their caged ultra egos,
taking persona, an avatar, a character who is no longer afraid
to express one's self intimately and have multiple 'encounters'
multiple webAffairs.

February,
2007
Special Collections' Dirty Little Secrets:
Looking for love in the stacks of
the Joan Flasch Artist's Book Collection

"Although
some of the materials contained within the book straddle the boundary
between sexy and a little bit sad, webAffairs is undeniably juicy and
revealing of just what everyday people will say about sex when there
are–for the most part–no consequences. "

"...
THIS BOOK WILL BE RELEVANT to anyone interested in gender, sexuality
and especially the construction of gender and identities through
internet technology. But it stands as an art work in its
own right. "Show-n-tell" is actually a metaphor for this
form of artistic practice."

"THE
BOOK COVER IS EMBLEMATIC. It's not an eye-catching female nude (that
would have been appropriate, once in a while), but a man staring
at the screen with his face illuminated by the pixel-emitted lights,
as the symbol of a substantial part of humanity staring at itself
through a mediated screen image, still inconceivably interconnected."

"...THE
BOOK BECOMES AN HONEST AND revealing analysis of her journey into
this virtual, yet potent, world of the different roles sex plays
in one's life."

"...Pixilated
images bleed off the oversized pages, interrupted by snippets of conversations
between the artist and members of the chat rooms. The conversations
meander from desire to the banal. They highlight the kind of spaces
her online companions occupy and create a context for their lives.
Using each double-page spread as a frame for her compositions, Show-n-tell
gracefully positions images of her desktop, cluttered with windows
containing images and texts to emphasize that all of this has been
recorded through the computer."

"...Some
nudes strike pornographic poses, trading a fig leaf for a laptop to
shield their nakedness. These are life studies from the Information
Age."

"...THE
INTERNET HAS MORPHED INTO AN expanding universe that parallels our
reality, mirrors it, and finally, reinvents it, while we struggle
to navigate the vastness of cyberspace and the spaces in between. The
duality there cannot be denied; pornographic and intimate, exposed
and anonymous, isolated and connected, real and virtual.
In WebAffairs, it’s the message and the medium. It’s information
as art, which seems especially relevant when technology threatens to overwhelm
us with limitless access and availability of information. On many levels, the
Web also offers infinite possibilities for exploring what is fundamentally
human; sexuality, community and the boundaries of existence."

March
8, 2006
Screen Shots
Sex and filth on the Internet? Show us more!

Luv2Lurk: so
do u think Show-n-tell succeeded? will anyone but us read this, or
is it just not juicy enough to be outright porno?HugBug: people will be interested because they can learn vicariously
through Show-n-tell. and it's not all sex. i think a few real friendships
can develop in the cyberworld.
Luv2Lurk: yeah, like her friend mr clean—he was my favorite. when he
stayed up all night singing songs to her that her dad sang when she was a child
. . . it seemed very sweet.
HugBug: but did they talk again after that?
Luv2Lurk: i don't know. i guess people just want that connection sometimes,
however brief or intangible.

December
2005
Artists Books Review

"...
Electronically edited and graphically redesigned to dramatically communicate
her story, this is a powerful documentation, interpretation, emotional
play that could go wrong, but she controls the whole thing. Later,
she is more interested in the stories, realizing that this project
has transformed her, making her conscious of herself and her potential. This
book, as all artists books, should be on your lap, not your shelf — and
it might change you as well."

December
23- 29, 2005
The Coffee Table,
All Things Bright and Beautiful

"...
FOR THOSE WHO LIKE THEIR sociology a little racier, here are two
fascinating volumes devoted to the complicated intersection of sexand
technology.webAffairs
(Eighteen Publications, 144 pages, $40) is a travelogue
of sorts in which an artist who goes by the online name of Show-n-tell shows
and tells her own journey into the world of adult-video chat rooms.
The book is a dizzying mess of low-res video stills, snippets of
online conversation, and passages of the author’s own commentary.
Despite the copious genitalia, however — this is definitely
not a book for young readers — the journey turns out to be
as much about friendship, community and the evolving nature of domestic
space as it is about sex."

"...
THE ARTIST, WHO GOES BY HER screen name Show-n-tell,
gathered images and text directly from her experiences in the chatrooms,
documenting the progression from curiosity to voyeurism, then beyond
personal boundaries into the realm of performance. The artwork
explores cultural implications of how technology has impacted sexuality
and the dichotomy between relationships conducted in the real and
virtual worlds.
... The fragmented visuals and complex dialogues speak not only of postmodern
sexuality expressed through broadband transmissions but of the humanity and
sense of community that Show-n-tell found
online."

this article was also published on x-biz
internet edition january 2, 2006

November
11, 2005
Should You Be In Pictures?

"...
THE BOOK IS A LARGE HARDBACK, printed on heavy paper, each page
a meticulously designed collage of webcam windows, chat excerpts,
theauthor's narrative and
snippets of conversation between the author and her husband. It
raises questions of privacy in public spaces, of fidelity, of emotional
and sexual involvement with lovers onscreen and off. And it truly
captures what it means to belong to an adult online community.
In fact, it's the best window to cyber relationships — and
their effect on offline relationships — I've seen. "One
of the interesting aspects of this project is the idea that virtual
space is undefined," Show-n-tell says. "It
blurs the line between public and private space as we understand
it."...
Her own immersion in the community, over a four-year period,
is an experience anyone who has ever spent time in an adult chat
room can relate to. Through art, she brings to life the spirit
of such places and the people you meet in them — people
you would probably never meet in any other way."

" WE
TODAY, SEEK TO CEMENT TIME in reproducible images, attempting to
be made real by becoming fictionalized. And now we're sitting
at home with our fingers up our twats, facing a digicam and typing
words into IM with our free hand. Cementing our personal fiction
with every stroke. (Show-n-tell's) stolen
images capture... these handcrafted attempts at notoriety, filmed
against the backdrop of the mundane terrors of everyday life."

"...
IN AN ADULT VIDEO CHAT ROOM where the borders of privacy and pornography
blur, the artist has culled images investigating voyeurism,
exhibitionism and the uncanny ways people use the Web to connect."

reprinted with permission of the Boston
Herald

"ONE
OF ART'S FUNCTIONS IS to throw light onto the shadowy, repressed
areas of society, in order to show us who we really are.webAffairs is
powerfully unsettling. The material ... is so provocative, it's nearly
impossible to get beyond the shock value to comprehend its larger
message. But to get beyond the shock would be to deny how truly disturbing
her subject matter is."

"...
EVEN IF THE REALITY IS A LITTLE disturbing the book is tastefully
done(if
you can actually say that about a book with some definitely
pornographic pictures in it) and the way she explores the subject
matter is extremely interesting."